Tuesday, October 22, 2013

our wedding · groom's perspective

Guess what?! I finally convinced my awesome writer of a husband to contribute a post to the blog! Here is his wonderful perspective of our wedding day. Mine to follow. xoxo

The Wife asked me a little while back to write this post,
and it didn't have to be ready for a few weeks. I, of course, said "hey,
no problem!" Then, suddenly, "a few weeks" are here. And I
maybe, sort of, kind of forgot. Oops. Anyways, this is my perspective of the
wedding day.

Leading up to that day, people kept asking me if I was
nervous. And I wasn't. In my mind, all I wanted was for everything to go as
according-to-plan as possible, and for people to have a great time. I knew The
Wife had a vision in mind, and ultimately I wanted things to go exactly how she
wanted, and I wanted people to remember it more as a party than a wedding.

The night before, we held our wedding rehearsal dinner at our
favorite spot in town - Shakespeare's. My father graciously hosted it at the new
South location in the big party room, and we had all of our out-of-town guests
there. Free pizza, free drinks, I think everyone had a great time. I had to
make/was kind of forced to make a couple of speeches, which isn't my forte, but
no one died so I think it was okay. Ultimately, I loved having people get to
experience not only the food, but the atmosphere, of a place that has had such
a huge impact on our lives.

That night, The Wife and I spent a few hours talking online.
It was a nice way to wind down the night and calm each other down for the
following day. In the morning, I met The Wife at the hotel because she forgot,
like, a ton of stuff she meant to bring to the hotel. I guess you're not
supposed to see the bride before the wedding, but we decided to take a risk.
(Spoiler alert: it worked out ok!)

After dropping off stuff at the hotel, I stopped at the
grocery store to get a gift bag and card for The Wife's wedding day gifts (the
idea of wedding day gifts is the most absurd thing on this planet to me, by the
way) (also I forgot to buy a card even though it was on my list. Oops). While I
was checking out, the person in front of me in line was buying sushi. From a
grocery store. At 8:30 in the morning. I lost a lot of faith in humanity that
morning based on that, however, on the drive home I saw a woman pulled over to
the side of the road helping a turtle cross the street, so it kind of canceled
itself out.

From there, I invited my side of the wedding party and a few
out-of-town friends to Stadium Grill, a local bar/restaurant that's attached to
the hotel we were staying at and getting ready at, for lunch and a few drinks.
We spent a few hours there, had a few beers, and ultimately had a nice time
just relaxing before the wedding.

We made our way up to the room and proceeded to hang around
for a little while, because we're guys and getting ready takes approximately 15
minutes at worst for us. We had a couple more drinks, sat around and talked and
relaxed for a bit. Eventually, my best man JJ went to the girls' room to give
my gift and get mine from The Wife. His response upon returning was:
"woah...it's way more tense in there than it is here." Sounds right.

Unfortunately for me, when JJ returned with the gifts, that's
when it all started to hit me. The Wife gave me an absolutely amazing gift and
wrote the sweetest note (remember when I said I forgot the card? son of a...).
At that point, we started getting dressed. Michelle, the wife of one of my best
men (mans? mens?) Lee, and the rest of our wedding party/friends came into the
room and she commented on how much I was pacing. Whoops. Eventually, the
clothing was getting finalized, and every single one of us forgot how to tie a
tie. It was almost as if we all simultaneously had a stroke.
Thankfully/unthankfully, The Wife's dad was there and helped us out (thankfully
- because we looked phenomenal, unthankfully - because is there anything more
demeaning than having your almost-father-in-law tie your tie on your wedding
day?).

Regardless, we all migrated to the quad of the University of
Missouri for the First Look. Mizzou, as you all know, is an incredibly special
place for The Wife and I, and there is no other place I could imagine having my
first wedding day pictures taken. The First Look was something I'll never
forget. I {MAY} have gotten yelled at by The Wife for looking at The Wife and
immediately turning away as for her not to see me start crying, but that could
be just be a rumor. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet, folks.

Pictures carried on. We had our wedding party, some of our
closest friends that weren't in the wedding party and would’ve been if I had
more guy friends, and our families with us. The weather, surprisingly for
late-June in Missouri, was perfect. Our two photographers and three
videographers were incredible, and as someone who hates to have their picture
taken, I enjoyed those two hours. My beautiful almost-Wife even got several
compliments from random people walking around the quad while our pictures were
being taken.

By the time pictures were over though, I was ready to get
going and get it over with. After a longer drive than we expected, we got to
the venue and The Wife had a few minutes to prep while I met with the officiant,
DJ and our day-of wedding organizer, Christy to finalize any last-second
nightmares that may have come up, while also getting strapped with numerous
microphones.

Finally, it was time to get married. The ceremony music -
the one thing I wanted to be in control of - went off without a hitch. JJ - the
Best Man - walked my beautiful Mother-in-Law down the aisle to start things off
and did everything he could to make sure she didn't cry (hey, at least he
tried). The officiant and myself followed, as did the rest of the wedding
party, and finally it was time for my amazing bride to walk down the aisle.
Even though I saw her at the First Look, I couldn't help but follow her every
step as she approached the front of the amphitheater.

The ceremony was short and sweet, just how we wanted it. A
little intro, a couple of readings from a few members of The Wife's fantastic
family, the vows, the kiss and let's dance. We were married, danced each other
out of the venue and awaited all of the people that came to see us in the receiving line. I was honestly blown away by how many people showed up to see us
get married, and couldn't have been more humbled by it.

From there, the typical wedding stuff occurred. The
entrance, dinner (an incredible meal, even though I didn't eat much of it),
cake cutting, bouquet/garter toss, all went by without a hitch. After that, it
was time for the First Dance. I was fortunate enough to get the wife to agree
to dance to an acoustic version of "Stand Inside Your Love" by the
Smashing Pumpkins. It is my favorite song of all-time by my all-time favorite
band, and since the first time I heard it back in 2000, I knew it was going to
be my First Dance song. The song played, The Wife and I danced and sang to each
other and everything about the moment was perfect. It's as I always imagined
it.

After we danced, it was time for my father-in-law to show
how much better at dancing he is than me. I absolutely loved watching my wife
and her father dance together. You could see how much they love each other, and
that moment in and of itself made me even more honored that he allowed me to
marry his daughter.

After that, some more songs played and finally more people
started dancing and having an awesome time. People here and there started
saying their goodbyes, including our photographers, when suddenly they said
"hey we want to take some pictures out on the dock (there was a pond at
our venue)." Us, being dumb, were like "yeah sure that makes sense in
the pitch black of night."

We stood out there for awhile, doing whatever pose our
photographers wanted us to do, before ultimately they told us to turn around
and face the water. Suddenly, fireworks started shooting off from the other
side of the pond. At first, The Wife and I were like, "ohh, this is
cool!" Then, a couple of moments in, we both at the same time realized
"ohh...this is for us." Us not realizing the fireworks show was for
us is one of my favorite parts of that day, but the show itself will stand out
in my mind for the rest of my entire life. An incredible gift on top of all of
the incredible things The Wife's parents had already done for us.

Once things settled down, our good friend Erik (you may know
him as Gritz & Gravy), took over as DJ. We always wanted our wedding to be
a fun, enjoyable time for everyone who came, but as it got later in the
evening, we wanted it to be get weird and dancey (because sometimes we get
weird and dancey). Little did we know, tons of people wanted to stick around
and do exactly that. Everyone had an absolute blast while Erik was working, and
little did we know that even after The Wife and I left around midnight or so,
the party would continue much, much longer after we were gone. That is exactly
what we wanted.

At the end of the day, everything went way better than
expected. The venue was decorated beautifully, thanks to the vision of The
Wife. Everything went off without a hitch, and everyone seemed to have a good
time, and that's really all I wanted. I know the day was supposed to be about
me and The Wife (mostly The Wife), but I just wanted it to be a fun day for all
the people we were inviting. It was all that and more, and I can't even begin
to thank everyone involved with the day - our friends, family, photographers,
videographers, DJs, officiant, caterers, venue hosts, everyone - for making it
a day I will absolutely not forget for the rest of my life. We love you all.